The Duke Lacrosse Accuser Stands by Her Story

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By
William Cohan

Apr 02, 2014

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In March 2006, Crystal Gail Mangum, a student at North Carolina Central University, who worked as a stripper and an escort, accused three members of the Duke lacrosse team — Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans — of raping her at an off-campus party. The case captivated the country, with the media breathlessly reporting the statements of prosecutor Mike Nifong, who was later fired, disbarred and imprisoned for 24 hours, and then those of the players' defense attorneys in a seemingly endless loop of contradictions. In April 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said there was "no credible evidence that an attack occurred at that house on that night," dropped the charges against the athletes and declared them innocent. Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans have since reached a confidential settlement with the university, which was said to pay them as much as $20 million each. Mangum is serving a prison sentence of up to 18 years for the 2011 murder of her boyfriend.

I visited with Crystal Mangum in November 2012,nearly seven years after the alleged incident at 610 North Buchanan. She was in Durham County Jail awaiting a November 2013 trial for the alleged murder of her then boyfriend, Reginald Daye, whom Mangum stabbed on April 3, 2011, in what she claimed was "self-defense" after an argument at their Durham apartment. In the warrant for her arrest, Durham police wrote that there was "probable cause" to believe that Mangum "unlawfully, willfully and feloniously did assault" Daye with a "KITCHEN KNIFE, a deadly weapon, with the intent to kill and [inflict] serious injury." In a 911 call from Daye's nephew to police, after Daye had been stabbed, the nephew said to the dispatcher, "It's Crystal Mangum. THE Crystal Mangum! I told him she was trouble from the damn beginning." Daye died 11 days later at Duke Hospital. "His death was a result of medical malpractice at Duke Hospital," Mangum told me from jail. "Everything was fine. He was getting ready to be discharged. All of a sudden they put that endotracheal tube — instead of putting it in his trachea, they put it in his esophagus." A Durham County jury disagreed with her explanation, and in November 2013 convicted Mangum of Daye's murder. She has been sentenced to up to 18 years in prison.

During my visit with her in jail, Mangum was dressed in a standard-issue orange jumpsuit and had orange Crocs on her feet. She was on the inside of a closed visiting room on a high floor; I sat on a stool on the outside of the room. We were separated by thick Plexiglas. She seemed nervous but more petite and attractive than I expected after seeing one mug shot after another of her. She seemed sad but also, on occasion, smiled warmly. We had had one previous communication, by letter, dated June 17, 2012, after I had asked to interview her. "I, as you probably have guessed, have been here for quite some time (fourteen months) and I am anxious to reunite with my angels (children) ages five, twelve and thirteen," she wrote. "If we could come to some sort of arrangement concerning my release, that would be a plus. If not, I don't feel that I would be interested. My bond is currently placed where I may be released with eight thousand cash, or property/land. I'm being very upfront because I do not want to waste your time or resources."

She agreed to speak with me at the jail, even though I made it clear I would not help her post bail. (For what it's worth, an unidentified person posted Mangum's $200,000 bail on February 20, 2013, far more than the $8,000 she suggested would spring her.) Mangum said her "emotional issues" had begun at an early age. "There's been a lot of abuse in my life," she said. "And it all began when I was young — when I was quite young. And it started off with family members touching me and me not saying anything about it, which led to me being attracted to older men 'cause I always felt like I was safe with an older man." She got into exotic dancing. "A lot of it had a lot to do with emotional issues," she said. "I was seeking validation from the wrong sources. Also, I found out that exotic dancing carried a substantial income as well" — about $1,500 a week, she said, for dancing and escorting. And she enjoyed the work. "Well, I'm a people pleaser anyway," she said. "And I love guys. So it fit. It fit with everything else. And I love music. I love to dance. There was some degrading things about it that I didn't like, but the good outweighed the bad up until that point."

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She said that the Duke lacrosse players had paid her and Kim Roberts $400 each, and then another $400 each — for a total of $800 each — when they decided to go back into 610 North Buchanan the second time. (If true, this was new, as previous reports had the dancers' pay at $400 each.) "I'm just trying to get it over with," she said about going back into the house. Mangum said the players started to get "riled up again," so Roberts left for good. "She was smart enough to leave," Mangum said. "I was obviously intoxicated." She said she believes the lacrosse players slipped her a Mickey Finn. "I honestly believe there was something in my drink because to this day I never felt that way before," she continued. "It felt like my heart rate had dropped really quickly. I was dizzy. I couldn't maintain my balance." Mangum went back into the house; Roberts was behind her. "Then one of the guys, when we go inside, they were like, 'You're gonna finish your job. You're not leaving until you finish.'"

Then she and Roberts got separated. "I ended up in the bathroom," Mangum continued. "And I could hear Kim outside ... In the bathroom there's like a door before you get to the bathroom. The guy named Dan, or that calls himself Dan, closed the door. And he looked at me. He's like, 'Sweetheart, you're not leaving.' And I got this chill, like this weird feeling, like, 'Oh no, this is not good' kind of feeling. And they took me in the bathroom. And I kept hearing all these people yelling like, 'Yeah, yeah. Give it, black bitch.' And they were just yelling like different things. And I could hear people banging on stuff. It was like really loud." She said the door to the bathroom remained half open. But as soon as she was in there, the three guys "just started taking my clothes off. And next thing I know, I feel this excruciating pain in my anal area, and I started crying and telling them to stop. But they wouldn't stop. They just kept doing it. And when I got to the hospital and they took the samples, it was like my skin was coming out like from the inside in my vaginal area and my anal area. And they found, like, wooden pieces. Like, I guess they used a broomstick."

None of the records of the medical exams mentioned the discovery of wooden shards in Mangum's vagina or anus. They used a broomstick? I asked. "The broom did it," she said. She was sure. "I felt like I was gonna die," Mangum continued, "like my stomach was cramping really bad. Like I felt like I was having a baby. My stomach was hurting really bad. And the guy that was in front of me, he kept telling the other guys to stop, like he didn't want them to — he was like, 'Man, you're gonna kill her. Stop.' He was like telling him to stop. And the other guy was like, 'We're not gonna kill her. We just wanna make her feel good.' And they were laughing at me and stuff. And they were like, 'Are you in pain? Are you hurting?' And it was like, 'I thought black girls liked it like this.' And I was crying and telling them to stop, but they just kept doing it." She said she thought to herself that while she had "flirted" with the players when she first arrived at the house, she could not understand why they were attacking her. "I kept asking them, why are you doing this to me?" she continued. "Why? And they just kept saying that, 'I thought black girls liked it rough. Thought they liked it like this.'"

She said the man standing in front of her was David Evans. The other guys were behind her shoving the broomstick up her anus. She said Evans forced her to give him oral sex by trying to put his penis in her mouth, and then he ejaculated. "I know for a fact that it happened," she said. "I've been carrying a lot of guilt because I was drinking and I was flirting. And I went back in the house. And my memory is kinda fuzzy. So it's a possibility that I may have picked the wrong people." She said the attack went on for "15 to 30 minutes" but she was not sure how or why it stopped. "All I know is that a door opened, and I was so happy 'cause I thought I was gonna die," she said. "All I know is, that door opened. I thought they were gonna kill me. Yeah, because like seconds earlier or minutes earlier, they were nice. I mean, they were sweet. It seemed like they turned into a different person, and I just couldn't understand how they changed so fast. So I'm figuring, if they changed in that manner, then maybe they'll try to kill me next. All I know is they picked me up and put my clothes back. They picked me up and take me outside and just dumped me on the porch. They just threw me outside on the porch and closed the door. And then, like, one of the guys picked me up and puts my arm around his neck. And I kinda felt like he kinda felt bad about what had happened. And he placed me in the back of Kim's car."

She said she thought Reade Seligmann was the one who felt guilty and carried her to the car. What about his alibi? She said she never saw the evidence of his alibi. "My problem with that is none of the evidence was actually verified in court," she said. "...Anybody can stand on television and say, 'I have an alibi.'" She said she had asked the Attorney General's Office for access to the evidence. "I was told all the evidence was destroyed for my case," she said. "I can't even get access to my own hospital records."

She said her life did not turn out as she had planned. She never expected to be in jail for supposedly killing her boyfriend. She never thought she would be reviled for accusing the three lacrosse players of attacking her. "It's very frustrating when you know something is true but you can't prove it," she said. "And then you have people that hate you, and you don't even know why. I have like millions of people around the country that hate me, and they've never met me. I guess they feel like I'm a vindictive person. And so that's their reaction or retaliation. I guess because my case never made it to trial [and] that the actual truth never came out. And the way the media makes it sound is that I just went to the police station and said, 'These guys raped me, get 'em.' That's the way they make it sound. But that's not the way it happened. I never even pressed charges. I went to the hospital for help. I mean, if it really had been up to me, I probably woulda just said leave it alone and went on with my life. I probably woulda kept it to myself. And a lot of times I wished I had. I used to think that the judicial system was so straightforward. If it's true, it'll come out and everything will be fine. Now I have a completely different view. It's not even a matter of innocence or guilt. It's a matter of who's more powerful or who has the most resources or who can persuade public opinion. And it's very frustrating. I think that our system needs to be built on something stronger than public opinion. And basically that's what my case came out to, popular opinion." As I got up to leave, Mangum stood up and put her hand against the Plexiglas. "Get me outta here," she said.